Monday, 31 December 2012

Model Poses For Artists

The nude figure has been the subject of art for centuries and continues to inspire contemporary artists. Figure drawing is part of the core curriculum at art schools and college art departments. Art models young and old play an important role in this creative process. So how does one learn how to become an artist's model?

The Art Model’s Handbook explains what you need to know to model for art classes and professional artists. You’ll learn about the structure of a figure drawing session, how to come up with interesting poses, costume modeling, fine art photography, professionalism, etiquette, finding work, and security concerns. Awkward but important questions about nudity are addressed. Guidelines for faculty and sample policies are also included.

Figure drawing is a creative collaboration. The model serves artists better by understanding why they draw the human figure. Artists and instructors have a more productive session by understanding the standard protocols. Based on the author's experience plus interviews with male and female models, artists, fine art photographers, and art school management, this is the definitive guide for art models, artists, and workshop leaders.

It is Friday morning, and Castle – graphic designer, artist's model since the age of eight, and life model since she was 18 – is posing for a life-drawing class at a north London arts centre. Moving easily from the cushions to stand in front of a student's easel, her body turned towards the light, she seems relaxed, despite the fact that everyone else in the room is fully clothed. She has never felt any embarrassment, she says. "I've always been fairly body-confident. To me it feels completely natural. It's about being part of the creation of art – about the beauty of the human form."

Artists trying to depict that form have always needed models willing to remove their clothes. Some drawings and paintings have brought the models notoriety in their own right – such as "la Fornarina", the woman shown semi-clothed and proffering her breast in Raphael's Portrait of a Young Woman, painted in around 1520; or the Italian noblewoman Simonetta Vespucci, believed to have been the model for Botticelli's The Birth of Venus in around 1485; or, rather more recently, Sue Tilley, the civil servant whose nude portrait by Lucian Freud sold last year for £17.2m. And, last month, prurient interest rippled around the media when nude pictures of Cherie Blair, painted by the artist Euan Uglow in the 1970s, went on display at a London.